


"It's blood laws."

by FeralCreed



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Brother Feels, Brother Relationships, Gen, Some Cursing, but i'm bad at judging such things, idk if it qualifies for the graphic violence tag, it's brief anyway, protective older brother shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 07:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11203566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralCreed/pseuds/FeralCreed
Summary: The only person that gets to kill Clint is Barney. Even when they're kids - Barney twenty-three and Clint nineteen - they know that. And it doesn't matter that the boy thinks his older brother's dead, doesn't matter that someone else tries to take his place. Someone tries to use Barney's brother against him. That's what matters.





	"It's blood laws."

There's a lot of ways to make enemies. Barney may or may not have gotten a couple as part of his cover for the FBI, but he'd also settled things and 'fixed' his 'mistakes'. He'd done a job for them and showed up at the drop site with his bag of cash and drugs, a peace offering of sorts. It rankles him but it's a necessary precursor to him doing such work in the area again, and he has his little brother to take care of. Even if that little brother might have thought he was dead thanks to a couple accidents and the older Barton's natural assholeness.

 

Barney's first idea that something is wrong is when there's the sound of a safety clicking off and Clint yells, high and frightened. He whirls around, hands clenching into fists, but two guys have already got their hands on the boy. One of them has his gun out and Barney slowly raises his hands, mentally scrambling for some way to get them both out of this alive. Were they always after Clint? Are they after Barney and using Clint as bait? Both? He knew they could both be hard to get along with, but he hadn't thought it was this bad...

 

“I can guarantee that you don't want to hurt him,” he says. His words sound more like a plea than a threat, and one man laughs. The half-moon doesn't give much light, and they're all clustered in the shadow of one of the boxcars. But he can still see Clint's wide eyes and rigid stance, practically feel him panic, and it's not helping his own state.

 

Someone hollers a 'who goes' and a flashlight beam cuts into the scene. It makes Clint's hair flash almost white – that's the one specific detail that Barney's brain chooses to pick up on as he lunges forward. The gunman swings his arm back around from where he'd turned it toward the light, but it's too late. Barney is on top of him, punching him again and again even though he already heard the crunch of broken bone. He'd heard the gun clatter off to the side, somewhere he couldn't see, but the old-fashioned way will work.

 

Clint did a good job of loosening the other man's hold on him, but got caught again, the grip around his arm too tight for him to wrench free. The man shakes him angrily, and Clint loses his balance, tumbling to the ground. He's soon being dragged off toward the side, away from both the light and the likely now-dead man on the ground. But unfortunately for him, the movement attracts Barney's attention.

 

“Let the boy go,” he orders, slowly standing up. He's barely twenty-three but he looks older, taller, a lot like their dad once did in the few pictures they've seen of him. The man hesitates just a second too long, glancing between his partner, his attacker, and the ever-approaching flashlight. Barney jumps him, driving the only weapon he'd been able to find deep into the side of his neck. Clint is thrown to the side by the force of impact and he scurries back on his hands and knees. The ill-fated partner slumps, grabbing futilely at his throat and choking at his own blood.

 

“Jugular, bitch,” he snarls, tossing his weapon down next to the body. It's an eight-inch shard of glass, from some liquor bottle probably, he doesn't care much. It was there and it was a viable defense. His hand drips blood onto the gravel and dirt. “Ain't nobody gets to kill you but me, you hear me?” he demands of Clint, pointing a finger at him. Then he moves toward him, pulls him to his feet, and Clint throws his arms around him.

 

“I knew you weren't dead,” the teen insists, burying his face in the man's shirt. “I knew it, I knew it.”

 

“Hey, jackass,” he replies with an easy grin. “Guess what?” Rather than answer, Clint starts crying. Barney puts an arm around his shoulders, bloody hand hanging at his side, and rests his chin on top of his head. “Y'always were small enough to do this,” he murmurs. They'd done it so many times before, hiding from their father, foster families, cops, and dozens of others. It's half a moment of normal among the insanity.

 

“Step away from the kid,” someone orders, and Barney squints in the sudden, harsh lights. The mystery man identifies himself as police and Clint swears under his breath.

 

“No way in hell,” he answers. The cop raises his gun, and Barney lets go of his little brother. But instead of leaving, Clint immediately goes to jump in the way. “Clint, _no_ ,” Barney yells, fear making his voice sharp. He shoves the boy out of the way, holding him at arm's length with a hand fisted in the front of his t-shirt. _Gotta get him out of the line of fire._

 

Clint picks up on the fact that his older brother is stronger than him and stops struggling. “He's my brother, please, don't hurt him, he's all the family I got-”

 

“Shut up,” Barney hisses, because he can't trust this cop, can't trust any cop.

 

“He's all I have,” Clint repeats instead, pleading with the officer. “ _Please_. Don't shoot him. We're unarmed.”

 

“What happened here?” the man asks.

 

“We found a duffle bag full of money, figured we could run off with it,” Barney says, interrupting whatever Clint might want to say. Like the truth. “I could keep this one off the streets for months with what we found in there. But these guys came after us, tried to kill him.”

 

“Please, sir,” Clint says, so softly it's almost a whisper. “I'll do anything, just let him come home with me.” He steps toward his brother a little, grabbing a handful of the older man's jacket and giving the cop a begging look. “He's my _brother_. He won't do anything, I promise. Will you, Barney?”

 

Clint knows better than to talk for him but Barney goes along with it. “Hell if I'll do anything that leaves you alone,” he answers, staring at the officer as he speaks.

 

“Look, we'll just take you down to the station,” the cop tells them. “If what you say is true, it's cut and dried self-defense. You'll get off scot free.”

 

Only problem is, what they're saying isn't true. And Barney knows that whatever rail yard cameras are there would have picked up the real story. He and Clint exchange a nervous glance, and he can tell that his little brother is going to go along with whatever he wants to do. Barney shoves him toward the silent line of cars behind them, covering him as the cop starts yelling at them. Clint scrambles over the hitch like a monkey and his brother isn't far behind.

 

They make it out of the yard by a miracle, scraping up their limbs sliding under the chain link fence and into the parking lot beyond. But the cop doesn't follow them, or if he does, he isn't fast enough. Getting across the highway is more dangerous, but it puts four lanes of traffic between them and whoever might have been after them.

 

“Good job, little brother,” Barney says once they're crouched behind a bar, panting for breath. Clint throws his head back and laughs. It's an incongruous setting for such a light, happy sound.

 

“I knew you weren't dead,” Clint repeats, smiling at him. “I knew I would've known.”

 

“Yeah,” Barney agrees, tugging him close with an arm around his shoulders. “You were always a smart one.”

 

But the boy shakes his head. “That ain't being smart, that's... that's just _knowin'_. It's blood laws.”

 

“Maybe so.” There's nothing 'maybe' about it, it was the same way Barney had known his little brother was still out there somewhere. Clint's idea of the thing had always been a little lesser, but the older Barton boy still believes in him. Still loves him. And as long as it's the other way around, too, there's not much else he needs. “You ready to get out of here?”

 

“With you?” It's a boy's hopeful optimism. Barney can't bring himself to point out how dangerous things will be or the chances that it will sour and end in blood.

 

“Unless you're planning to get picked up with the garbage,” he says. Clint snorts and punches him in the shoulder. “Hey, asshole, easy.” He puts his little brother in a headlock, drags him around the side of the building. The kid gets out of it by the time they get to the parking lot and they walk side by side.

 

It's a damn good feeling, Barney realises. Clint's just about bouncing into orbit, grin threatening to crack his face in half. And Barney's expression isn't much different, he realises. He's happy. For the first time in a long time, and it's all due to his little brother. That much he knows. The rest? The rest doesn't matter. None of it does. They can figure that out tomorrow.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I toyed with the brothers' age gap. And sort of what they were supposed to be up to at this time in their lives. But hell, that's what fics are for, right? This is, again, based on stuff I was talking about with Elli - stop saying 'yey' when I grumble about wanting to write the thing! :P


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